STF mines Lava Jato arm with Odebrecht test annulled – 07/17/2023 – Power

The annulment of the main evidence presented in the leniency of Odebrecht by the STF (Supreme Federal Court) has imploded the remaining cases of the various arms of Lava Jato spread across the country and benefited targets that include the brother of former minister Geddel Vieira Lima and Paulo Vieira de Souza , Paulo Preto.

These decisions were initially taken by Minister Ricardo Lewandowski, who retired in April, in procedures that were inherited by Dias Toffoli.

The evidence used in the actions is derived from Odebrecht’s Drousys and MyWebDay systems, respectively for internal communication and accounting and control of payments of undue advantages.

At the request of the defense of President Lula (PT), at the time commanded by Cristiano Zanin, who will become Supreme Minister, Lewandowski interrupted investigations against the PT on the grounds that the integrity of the evidence coming from these systems was corrupted, mainly because the files were transported improperly.

In messages exchanged on the subject, which were accessed by hackers and later obtained in Operation Spoofing, prosecutors said that the files were handled in supermarket bags, with no care for their preservation.

Under this argument, Lewandowski also locked actions against vice president Geraldo Alckmin (PSB) and against the former president of Fiesp (Federation of Industries of SP) Paulo Skaf.

In March of this year, the now-retired minister suspended proceedings against former minister Edison Lobão, against Admiral Othon Pinheiro, former president of Eletronuclear, and against lawyer Rodrigo Tacla Duran.

By then, there had already been at least 60 requests for extension of the decision granted to Lula to others mentioned in the Odebrecht denunciation.

Actions related to this topic that were under Lewandowski’s responsibility were transferred to Minister Dias Toffoli after his retirement. Toffoli has also positioned himself in line with the defense’s requests.

Since he became responsible for the processes, the minister has declared the evidence from the systems useless in various actions, and prevented them from being used.

He did this, for example, in the process of former director of Dersa (state of São Paulo highways) Paulo Vieira de Souza, known as Paulo Preto.

Souza was the main target of the Lava Jato task force in São Paulo, which filed five complaints against the former director of Dersa from March 2018 to September 2020.

According to the Federal Public Ministry, he committed the crimes of corruption and money laundering in works in São Paulo, especially the southern section of the Rodoanel —a ring road that surrounds the city of São Paulo—, during the José Serra (PSDB) administration.

His defense always denied that he had committed wrongdoing.

The worthlessness of the evidence was also declared in a lawsuit involving former minister Paulo Bernardo and in one related to former deputy Lúcio Vieira Lima (MDB-BA), brother of former minister Geddel Vieira Lima –Geddel was marked by the operation that found BRL 51 million in a bunker in Salvador.

“The probative elements coincide, at least in part, with those declared useless by this Supreme Court in the precedents mentioned above, bearing, as a result, the same defects”, says Toffoli in his decisions.

The minister affirms that the nullity of the evidence has already been ratified in a final and unappealable decision of the Second Panel of the Federal Supreme Court (with no possibility of appeal) “in view of the proven contamination of the evidentiary material collected by the 13th Federal Court of Curitiba”.

“In this sense, it is possible to verify, as highlighted by the applicant, that the aforementioned evidence was cited on several occasions”, he added.

Federal deputy Beto Richa (PSDB), former governor of Paraná and now federal deputy, and Anthony Garotinho (União Brasil), former governor of Rio de Janeiro, also benefited from similar decisions.

In several actions, this worthlessness of evidence is a first step by Justice towards the total annulment of the process.

In the two systems used by Odebrecht to operate bribes, Drousys and MyWebDay, payments were identified for more than one hundred public works in more than ten countries, in addition to Brazil. These transfers are recorded in 1.9 million files with a total of 54 terabytes.

Secret financial control and communication systems, four levels of accounts and even a strategy to prevent money carriers from getting drunk were all part of the nine years of operation of the Structured Operations Sector at Odebrecht.

This division of the company specialized in the payment of bribes, cash transfers and camouflaged compensation for its executives, and was created in 2006 to organize the growing flow of dirty money in the company.

Contacted, Novonor’s (formerly Odebrecht) advisory said that the company “is not a party to the processes in question, in which it does not interfere or have any kind of participation.”

“He understands that he fulfilled and continues to fulfill his role, collaborating with the authorities”, says the note.

The company states that it has “commitment to an ethical, honest and transparent performance” and that “the Integrity Policy and the new governance, 100% implemented, are today recognized by a diverse set of organizations in Brazil and abroad, having renewed, including , the seal ISO 37001 – Anti-Bribery Management System, for all its operations”.